Funds raised for former Preston North End, Burnley and Blackpool player
An emotional night.
A reunion event has been held to raise funds for a former footballer who played for three Lancashire clubs.
Gary Parkinson played for Preston North End, Blackpool and Burnley - as well as Bolton Wanderers - during a career spanning 18 years.
He started out at Everton and also had spells at Southend, Stalybridge Celtic and Rossendale United, but it was at Middlesbrough where he spent the most time, between 1986 and 1993.
The club’s ‘Class of ‘86’ reunited at Middlesbrough Town Hall on Thursday night to raise funds for the Gary Parkinson Trust.
Parkinson, 58, has locked-in syndrome and cannot communicate or move except through blinking and other eye movements. He developed the condition after suffering a stroke in 2010.
Thousands was raised for the trust on the night. The event, organised by Parkinson’s fellow ex-Middlesbrough teammate Bernie Slaven, also featured an auction and a raffle, with all proceeds going to the trust.
Most of the 14-man squad from the 1986-87 season reunited to share stories of their time at Boro, during a period when the club was facing significant financial difficulties. That squad was made up largely of homegrown, young players.
At the start of that season, the gates to Middlesbrough’s ground at the time, Ayresome Park, had been padlocked and the club’s debt amounted to around £2m. Three weeks later, Boro were saved from extinction by a consortium led by current chairman Steve Gibson.
At the end of that same campaign, Middlesbrough won promotion from the Third Division and went up again the following year.
It is regarded as one of, if not the most, iconic and successful periods in the club’s history.
Amongst those in attendance was Middlesbrough’s manager at the time, Bruce Rioch, and then-captain Tony Mowbray, now Blackburn Rovers manager, who spoke emotionally about Parkinson in an interview with BBC Radio Lancashire on Thursday.
“The manager's coming from Exeter, Gary Hamilton's coming from Texas,” Mowbray said, “can I drive two hours to Teesside from Blackburn? Of course I can, and drive back tonight for training tomorrow. Friends for life, Parky was an amazing young man.
“I was 22, Parky was 18. What a kid he was, he's just so funny and his personality is still very much there. He can only move his eyelids, he can only flash his eyelids to communicate with anybody, but I can see his personality, I can feel his personality.
“When we talk, he understands and listens to everything, he just can't communicate back, other than flick his eyelids. But he's so funny and because he's got one of these computers that can try to answer for him, he laughs.
“People like Slavin and Mark Proctor who are so humorous and funny and witty and make jokes, they have him laughing.”
He added: “It's great to see the same human being that we knew as an 18 year old, here he is in his late 50s now.
“We do it because we love him really and the team, the camaraderie, that's the human beings they are really, these lads, and I'd like to think I'm the same. I care about people, I want only success for people.”